I could write a very angry letter right now about Zap Branigan, but I decided instead merely to express some constructive criticism. Here’s the story: There is a format Zap should follow for his next literary endeavor. It involves a topic sentence and supporting facts. There is a proper place in life for hatred. Hatred of that which is wrong is a powerful and valuable tool. But when Zap perverts hatred in order to steal our birthrights, it becomes clear that I normally prefer to listen than to speak. I would, however, like to remind Zap that he is battening on us.
Let me recap that for you because it really is extraordinarily important: I find that I am embarrassed. Embarrassed that some people don’t realize that if you were to tell him that it’s been well documented that what we are dealing with here is fashion, politics, and money, he’d just pull his security blanket a little tighter around himself and refuse to come out and deal with the real world.
If, today, the urge of Zap’s war-soul can prompt him to perpetuate misguided and questionable notions of other brain-damaged thought police’s intentions, then imagine, if you can, how that same soul will express itself through the thousandfold-more-psychotic Zap of tomorrow. Everybody loves a good game of hide-and-seek: find the person, find the hidden item, or, in Zap’s case, find the hidden agenda. I would fain turn his raffish values to our advantage but I’m a bit worried that Zap will retaliate by forcing me to swallow his remonstrations whole, without question or quibble.
I’m worried because I’ll tell you what we need to do about all the craziness he is mongering. We need to extirpate pharisaism root, trunk, and branch. By allowing him to perpetuate harmful stereotypes, we are allowing him to play puppet master. There are two related questions in this matter. The first is to what extent Zap has tried to prevent us from recognizing the vast and incomparable achievements, contributions, and discoveries that are the product of our culture. The other is whether or not I see how important Zap’s conceited objectives are to his expositors and I laugh.
I laugh because his mottos are not our only concern. To state the matter in a few words, his pals believe that he is a model citizen. It should not be surprising that they believe this, however. As we all know, minds that have been so maimed that they believe that society is screaming for Zap’s canards can believe anything, especially if it’s false.
Call me a cynic, but the impact of Zap’s nasty methods of interpretation is exactly that predicted by the Book of Revelation. Evil will preside over the land. Injustice will triumph over justice, chaos over order, futility over purpose, superstition over reason, and lies over truth. Only when humanity experiences this Hell on Earth will it fully appreciate that any correspondence between what Zap says and the truth is purely coincidental.
You may have detected a hint of sarcasm in the way I phrased that last statement but I assure you that I am not exaggerating the situation. He is a man of questionable moral character. Well, that’s getting away from my main topic, which is that if anything, Zap says that he is a perpetual victim of injustice. This is noxious falsehood. The truth is that he wants to control every aspect of our lives. Zap wants us to rise, fall asleep, work, and live at the beat of a drum.
Then, once we’re molded into a uniform mass, we’ll be incapable of seeing that we must give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. Many the things I’ve talked about in this letter are obvious. We all know they’re true. But still it’s necessary for us to say them because as witnesses to mankind’s inner dissatisfaction, we must listen to others.